Things 7 & 8, 2008: Firefox extensions, LibX and Zotero

We didn't do these Things in 2007 so I've tried them out this year.
I started adding Firefox addons and found the problem was to stop myself from adding more and more of them. As Aaron said, it's easy to forget that what is an addon is an addon and not part of the way the basic Firefox works.
I did add - colorful tabs; Delicious bookmarks (I like Delicious so might as well make it easy to add to sites to it); PDF download (still working out how to use this); Zotero; and the 23 Things toolbar (thanks, Aaron, this is great!).
I also switched to the Red Cats (blue flavor) theme - really rather cute.
I'd already downloaded LibX.
I added some resources to Zotero - the Australian War Memorial Collection Databases, two books from the Murdoch catalogue, an article from JSTOR, and the 'From History to Her Story' website. Being able to create a bibliography looks useful. I never have warmed to EndNote.
What would I use?
The Colorful Tabs addon is great - when you have lots of tabs open it does help to work out which is which.
The Murdoch library toolbar is also good - it puts all the 23 Things 2008 Things on my toolbar. I think this would be very helpful for people doing the programme this year.
LibX has lots of possibities - how many times have users said, "I've found this journal online and I thought Murdoch subscribed to it. Why can't I access it?". Answer: "If you haven't accessed via the Library's website and you're off campus, then you won't be authenticated. With LibX, you just right click anywhere on the page and choose 'reload via off campus access'."

Thing 9, 2008: Google Docs and iGoogle

In 2008 Google Docs was Thing 9 and it was my job to present the Thing. I added iGoogle as a fun thing to do.
So ... Google Docs? Would be great for sharing the editing of a document, especially when the editors are not in one physical location with access to a shared folder on an intranet. Docs and Spreadsheets have all the basic functions that the equivalent Office products have. Perhaps, though, for work-related documents, once a document is finalised, it would be best shared somewhere more under control of the organisation that you work for. eg shared folder on intranet.
BTW, you can publish Google docs so they're available to anyone on the web. My published document is here.
As for iGoogle - that's just plain fun. However, it's useful to be able to pull all your 'things' together in and around the one page - feeds, gmail, and also the library's google gadget. Here is an image of my iGoogle page:

Murdoch University Library 23 Things 2008

23 Things is back for 2008. See the full story.

LibraryThing

This is my LibraryThing catalogue with suitably non-literary titles. I'm trying to add the blog widget...

Why no new posts since November last year?

I've finished 23 Things. However, I'm still posting to my RecentlyRead blog.

Week 13: What have been the highs and lows? Where to next with emerging technologies, for me and for libraries?

The 'highest' high has been the comments and conversations of my fellow 23 Thing People (and others) which have helped me explore and appreciate each of the Things. It's really helped me clarify my thoughts and ideas. Thanks to all of you. And thanks to all who have become my Friends!

Another high has been the learning aspect. Learning is something I enjoy, and having a programme broken down into lots of small (and incremental) steps is a good way 'to eat an elephant'. Thanks, Kathryn.

The lows? Finding the time - and sometimes this meant lost sleep. Plus having to keep track of my usernames and passwords - thank goodness all but Flickr accepted my chosen (standard) username and password combination - yes, I know that's not good practice.

Where to now? I'll be interested to see what ideas come out of 23 Things - hopefully there'll be some T/things that we can use to move our library services forward. From here, I need to keep an open mind about new ideas on the Web 2.0 front, and try to look at them objectively in terms of what they could do for libraries.

Week 12: Revisit the goals I set in Week 2. Did I reach them?

1. The time to do what's needed to complete all 23 things? I'm nearly there. One more post (I think) and I need to tick off one last Thing.
2. The determination to finish all 23 things? See the Point 1 - I must have reached this one, the end is in sight!
3. The acceptance that I will probably not have time to do it all perfectly? There's lots more I could have done, but I've had a go.
4. A record of interesting things I find that help my understanding of the this programme? See RecentlyRead.
5. The ability to see how we could use any or all of the 23 Things in providing a rewarding and relevant library service to our clients? Hmm... Well, I've tried, but I did keep getting distracted by the personal/social aspects of the 23 Things. Linking Things to Library Services was a little more challenging, but I did have some ideas (see some of my other posts).

So yes, I think I did reach my goals.